Herbert Eugene Caen was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, painful puns, and offbeat anecdotes—”a continuous love letter to San Francisco”—appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle for almost sixty years (excepting a relatively brief defection to The San Francisco Examiner) and made him a household name throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. These Herb Caen quotes will motivate you.
Best Herb Caen Quotes
- “A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.” ~ Herb Caen
- “I sometimes worry about my short attention span, but not for long.” ~ Herb Caen
- “A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams.” ~ Herb Caen
- “I hope I go to Heaven, and when I do, I’m going to do what every San Franciscan does when he gets there. He looks around and says, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.'” ~ Herb Caen
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“San Francisco isn’t what it used to be, and it never was.” ~ Herb Caen
- “Isn’t it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?” ~ Herb Caen
- “Martinis are like breasts, one isn’t enough, and three is too many.” ~ Herb Caen
- “It is better to have loved and lost, but only if you have a good attorney.” ~ Herb Caen
- “One day if I do go to heaven…I’ll look around and say, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.” ~ Herb Caen
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“The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.” ~ Herb Caen
- “There are a thousand viewpoints in the viewtiful city.” ~ Herb Caen
- “Cockroaches and socialites are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything.” ~ Herb Caen
- “I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.” ~ Herb Caen
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“Logic is no answer to passion.” ~ Herb Caen
- “A city is where you can sign a petition, boo the chief justice, fish off a pier, gaze at a hippopotamus, buy a flower at the corner, or get a good hamburger or a bad girl at 4 A.M. A city is where sirens make white streaks of sound in the sky and foghorns speak in dark grays. San Francisco is such a city.” ~ Herb Caen
- “The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.” ~ Herb Caen
- “Baffling late-life discovery: Golfers wear those awful clothes on purpose.” ~ Herb Caen
- “You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils as far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding hundred dollar bills.” ~ Herb Caen
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“I have a memory like an elephant. I remember every elephant I’ve ever met.” ~ Herb Caen
- “A city is a state – of mind, of taste, of opportunity. A city is a marketplace – where ideas are traded, opinions clash and eternal conflict may produce eternal truths.” ~ Herb Caen
- “A good column is one that sells paper. It doesn’t matter how beautifully it is written and how much you admire the author… if it doesn’t sell any papers, it’s not a good column. It’s a terrible yardstick to use, but in the newspaper business, that’s the whole thing.” ~ Herb Caen
- “The clock doesn’t matter in baseball. Time stands still or moves backwards. Theoretically, one game could go on forever. Some seem to.” ~ Herb Caen
- “God! I loove this city!” ~ Herb Caen
- “When a place advertises itself as ‘World Famous,’ you may be sure it isn’t.” ~ Herb Caen
- “Americans are pragmatic, relatively uncomplicated, hearty, and given to broad humor.” ~ Herb Caen
- “San Franciscans have a bond of self-satisfaction bordering on smugness.” ~ Herb Caen
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“New Yorkers are stuck in a gloomy mucilage of mutual commiseration.” ~ Herb Caen
- “Best trumpet: Mike Vax, an alumnus of the Kenton Band, who plays every style with a bright cutting edge, throwing in bop riffs here and there.” ~ Herb Caen
- “We (San Francisco) have football weather during baseball season and baseball weather during football season.” ~ Herb Caen
- “We are reorganizing in order to eliminate duplication and redundancy.” ~ Herb Caen
- “The precise location of heaven on earth has never been established but it may very well be right here” ~ Herb Caen
- “Just two days in Manhattan and you find yourself looking for a place to wash your handkerchief after you wipe your forehead and it comes away black. Is there a dirtier or more fascinating city anywhere in the land? The answer to both parts of the question has to be positively negative.” ~ Herb Caen
- “A city is a crazy concrete jungle whose people at the end of each day somehow make a small step ahead against terrible odds.” ~ Herb Caen
- “Satire of satire tends to be self-canceling, and deliberate shock tactics soon lose their ability to shock, especially when they’re too deliberate.” ~ Herb Caen
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“Philosophically, I don’t like doing commercials.” ~ Herb Caen
- “The waterfront without the Ferry Tower would be like a birthday cake without a candle.” ~ Herb Caen
- “The world of Manhattan is small and tightly knit, and the man on top retains a certain humility. He knows how far and fast he can fall by looking at the guy across the street. The view from the $250,000 apartment covers a lot of ground, most of it condemned.” ~ Herb Caen
- “Old San Francisco – the one so many nostalgics yearn for – had buildings that related well to each other.” ~ Herb Caen
- “All American cars are basically Chevrolets.” ~ Herb Caen
- “The clock doesn’t matter in baseball.” ~ Herb Caen
